Skip to content • Skip to gallery information

Quent Cordair Fine Art

Click to chat with
a gallery representative

Like us on Facebook

« Butterfly Step 3
Navigator - Step 1 »

Butterfly step 4

Painting hair is always a lot of fun, and in this case doubly so since it filled in all the awkward gaps left in the blouse and neck, and pulled the entire figure together. The real trick with hair, as with drapery, is to keep in the back of your mind, while painting all the interesting separate curls and waves, that there is an underlying form to which they all have to conform. It’s pretty easy to accidentally exaggerate a shape and give the figure an unfortunate lump on the head…or worse…a weird depression. Contrast and extreme value control is important too. Too much evenly distributed contrast, and the hair looks wet and stringy. Too liberal an expression of the highlights and the effect is flat and boring. It’s actually very much like painting a metallic object. That one highlight in just the right place makes all the difference.
I am always a little tempted to leave certain paintings in exactly this state of completion. There’s something intriguing about the finished figure emerging from the sketched in, textured canvas.

butterflyas8

But I’m always more interested in giving my figures some sort of context….
As I mentioned earlier, this piece was painted under a pretty tight deadline, so I kept the background simple. Clouds, sky and concrete are all things I like to paint, and can paint quickly. And it’s no secret that I like the contrast between the architectural and the organic. So, this young woman is suddenly sitting on a concrete wall in the clouds. But, she is obviously looking at something…. At times it is fun to leave the object of a figure’s attention up to the viewer’s imagination, but in this case, the overall composition also needed a smaller shape to balance the figure, and a bit of color. The butterfly provided both, as well as giving me a chance to break out the serious cadmium reds and oranges, and extending the juxtaposition of organic beauty and structure against the geometric, man made architecture. It also gave the painting a title with a subtle double meaning.

butterflyas9

And there you have it! A simple figure painting, with a simple theme…but one that, I think, turned out beautifully.

As always, I really look forward to any questions and/or comments, either on this piece in particular or on more general art related topics.
Thanks for reading!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply

About Bryan Larsen ~

Bryan Larsen

"I was born on February 12, 1975, and have been drawing as long as I can remember. By the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be an artist, although at the time I didn't have a clear idea of how exactly I would use my talents to make a living.

"As I continued studying art, I began to suspect that fine visual art was dead. No one seemed interested in teaching students how to draw well, or paint well. More often than not, my own skills exceeded those of my instructors.

"The only field left that seemed to require good drawing, painting, and compositional skills was illustration, and therefore I began studying illustration at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. I became even more convinced that I had made the right decision in staying away from fine art as I endured course after course of required "drawing" and "painting" classes in which instructors required me to draw with "less focus", or use ridiculous materials such as shellac, glue, sand, salt, etc.

"My second year at Utah State, I met Damon Denys. In discussing Art with him I realized that there were other people who believed that technique and subject matter were indispensable components of any work of art. I then decided that I would work to develop my own painting skills with the purpose of creating artwork that I considered worthy of being called Fine Art.

"Since that time, I have studied on my own: Drawing from live models to learn the human form, studying proper painting techniques from any source I could find ample reason to trust, and developing a philosophy of Art based on reason, and life on earth.

"My goal is to portray the heroic and romantic in human nature and human achievement in a realistic style and a modern setting. I place particular emphasis on composition, technique, realistic detail, proper craftsmanship and consistency of style."